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That Was One Giant Man, Taking That Step

SLIGHTLY
OFF THE MARK“I’m gonna go up there
someday.” The young man crouched in his parents’ backyard, squinting into the
eyepiece of a telescope.His mother followed his
gaze, up to the bright globe hovering over their back yard. “To the Moon?”“Sure. It’s 1962, Ma --
they’re sending up rockets and such. And I’m a pilot -- who’d be better for flying
that far than a pilot?”She shook her head, still
looking toward the Moon, her mouth downturned. “As if your life wasn’t
dangerous enough, you want to go out into space. Sometimes I don’t think we
raised you with a lick of sense.”He grinned, and enveloped
his mother in a hug. Neither was much of a talker, but they understood each
other.“I’ll bring you back a Moon rock.
Or cheese.”“Just bring me back
yourself.” She turned away from the gray orb, back toward the comforts of her
home and the things she knew and understood. How things had changed since her
son was born: World Wars, Cold Wars, rockets into space, that crazy interstate
highway idea. And her little boy flying around in jet fighters, fending off the
Red Menace.“That’s gotta be the first
step, Ma. You’ve seen the movies -- we’re destined to go out into space,
someday, explore the stars. We’re headed up a ladder, and the Moon is the first
rung.”“Well.” At the door she
turned back, to see her son standing there in his uniform, still staring up.
Maybe he’d be safer in a spacesuit, after all. “If you’re going to do all that,
you need to keep your strength up. You get in here and eat your supper before
it gets cold, Neil Armstrong.”Neil’s smile seemed to say
that no matter what he accomplished, his mother would always be his mother.#

I wrote that for a writer’s group a few
years ago, trying to capture what it must have been like for a young man about
to push the edge of technology, to become a true pioneer. I don’t know if any
moment like that ever happened (the real Armstrong was already married at that
point), but if so, it would have happened just a couple of hours drive from
where I grew up, and from where I marveled at his accomplishments as a kid.

1962 was the year I was born: the
year Neil Armstrong’s daughter died of pneumonia, the year Armstrong was chosen
as a pilot for a military space plane, and the year he sent in his application
to be one of the “New Nine” NASA astronauts.

I was four years old when Armstrong
went up on Gemini 8, six when he was
almost killed while flying a lunar lander simulator. Two days after my seventh
birthday Apollo 11 lifted off, and my
earliest memory is staring at the grainy black and white TV footage as Neil
Armstrong becoming the first human being to step foot on our Moon.

Like many kids of the time, I was
all about space exploration. I had a full Apollo rocket assembly (a toy with a
capsule that would pop off and fly into the air); a plastic lunar lander;
models of, among other things, a Soviet Soyuz capsule and assorted other
rockets and spaceships; and, of course, astronaut action figures. Vietnam,
Nixonian politics, and the Cold War could have been in another universe for all
I cared, but I inhaled any information I could get about space exploration.

Naturally I wanted to be an
astronaut myself, but it turns out they have to be good with math.

I’m not sure it’s possible to
overstate the impact the first Moon landing had on the world. 450 million radio
listeners heard Neil Armstrong proclaim he’d just made a giant leap for
mankind. 93% of American households with TVs tuned in to the mission, making it
the most watched program ever at the time.

The President was waiting to greet them
personally when they splashed down. (I remember my teacher dragging a portable
TV into our classroom so we could watch a splashdown live, although I don’t
recall if it was Apollo 11 or a
different flight.) The astronauts rode in ticker tape parades, were on stamps
and coins, and got a visit with the Queen of England.

So when I say Neil Armstrong was a
Big Deal, understand that I’m not doing that over-exaggeration thing that’s
become far too common with the most minor celebrities. And when I say Neil
Armstrong was a hero, realize just how high the stakes were: In today’s
risk-averse world, the whole thing never would have happened.

There was every reason to believe
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and maybe even command module pilot Michael
Collins, would never see Earth again. It was a huge technological challenge,
and the planners were rushed by the fact that it was also a race. (A Soviet
probe malfunctioned and crashed on the Moon just after Armstrong and Aldrin
finished the first Moon walk.) A speech had been prepared for President Nixon
to give if the Apollo 11 crew ended
up stranded.

When the astronauts got ready to
leave, they discovered the switch that would arm the one and only main engine
for liftoff had broken off. They used a felt-tip pen to replace it. Only the
pen kept them from dying on the Moon.

So, yeah. I’m a bit gutted by his
death, as my British friends would say. Neil Armstrong was my first real-life
hero. I hadn’t had many heroes at all, to that point: Mr. Spock of Star Trek, maybe, and assorted
characters from TV shows and comic books. But Armstrong was real. A flesh and
blood daredevil, a man who grabbed death by the hood and kicked its butt.

He didn’t seek fame, didn’t get
stupid with bling or childish behavior, didn’t lever his celebrity for personal
gain. By all accounts he was brave and humble; a risk taker, but not obnoxious
about it; a pioneer, but aware he was only human.

Neil Armstrong was more than a hero:
He was the kind of man they just don’t seem to make anymore. Just as the
universe became bigger and more accessible with him, the world seems a smaller,
duller place without him. Rest in peace, Neil. Once more you go into unknown
territory – may your engines always fire, and your compass always be true.